The World's Rubbish Dump

[waysider]

During my time in The Way (1972-1990) I can recall VPW being asked about his opinion of environmental type issues. For the most part, he shrugged off the inquiries and said we needn't worry about such things because God saw the whole thing in His foreknowledge and that Christ would return before it would affect us. Now, remember, anything and everything that Wierwille stated in those days was accepted as being on a Gospel-like level. As a result, many people adopted a cavalier attitude about the environment and ecology. Recently, in various posts, I was somewhat surprised to see evidence that this attitude persists, even all these years after VPW's demise. Wierwille was not only wrong in what he taught about Bible verses, he was wrong to promote this destructive sort of attitude about our stewardship of the planet we call home.

Here is a brief link to an alarming situation that defies this cavalier approach:

A "plastic soup" of waste floating in the Pacific Ocean is growing at an alarming rate and now covers an area twice the size of the continental United States, scientists have said.

The vast expanse of debris – in effect the world's largest rubbish dump – is held in place by swirling underwater currents. This drifting "soup" stretches from about 500 nautical miles off the Californian coast, across the northern Pacific, past Hawaii and almost as far as Japan.

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/the-worlds-rubbish-dump-a-garbage-tip-that-stretches-from-hawaii-to-japan-778016.html

Edited July 5, 2009 by waysider

[RumRunner]

While I completely agree with you (WS) about the need to be environmentally aware and pro-active (it happens to be part of my profession)...Most of the names in the cited article are not even second stringers in the oceanography world - most are red-shirted side-liners.

Ebbesmeyer's claim to fame was when a cargo container ship dumped tens of thousands of running shoes overboard during high seas. Instead of a clean up he proposed (and got limited funding for) that we dump ARGOS drifters (buoys that go with the currents and transmit location etc via sat link) into the mess and watch the ocean circulation of the running shoes.

Now this is fundamentally flawed science. The currents exist with or without the shoes. You can (and scientists do) track circulation by just tossing ARGOS drifters out into open ocean currents as well as littoral currents - INDOEX and ARGO are good examples of well documented international efforts to map ocean circulation.

http://argo.ucsd.edu/

The ocean currents are far too extensive for the shoes to make significant (in even the tiniest sense of the word) changes in ocean circulation - hence even if he had proposed measuring change in circulation his premise would have been flawed. a) the circulation is too powerful to change via surface contamination and b) since he had no baseline for the currents he could not have measured relative change.

All that being said - back to your concern - yes TWI taught environmentally disastrous concepts and irresponsibility - as always personal responsibility was replaced by the magic kingdom of god's miracles wrought from New knoxville.

As I've been saying for a few decades now - just because you have a dishwasher that cleans dishes doesn't mean you should use it to take a crap in.

Edited July 5, 2009 by RumRunner

[waysider]

The "plastic soup" issue is actually peripheral to my point. You can easily substitute another environmental issue of your choosing.

As you noted, Wierwille's take on the subject fostered an atmosphere of irresponsibility.

I have started to see remnants of that thinking in some recent posts.

But, hey! No big deal. If Christ doesn't return soon enough, we can simply tap into "the magic of believing", as it was called in the original class materials, and everything will be "a-okay" again. (Doctor said so.)

Edited July 5, 2009 by waysider

[RumRunner]

I have started to see remnants of that thinking in some recent posts.

But, hey! No big deal. If Christ doesn't return soon enough, we can simply tap into "the magic of believing", as it was called in the original class materials, and everything will be "a-okay" again. (Doctor said so.)

Yeah WS - let's all go ahead and crap on our living room floors. The maids will get it tomorrow - or god will clean it up during our sleep - or - or - or

The killer is that, as a consumer, it costs little or nothing to reduce, reuse, recycle. In fact if you are composting you get a net gain out of recycling. If you reuse (maybe reuse that box that was shipped to you for shipping something to someone else) you also net gain - less cash outflow.

Reduction from large industry is a problem of another scale - not insurmountable - but not one I am going to delve into here.

Thanks for being so adamant about the planet's health

[Ham]

This cavalier attitude is not isolated to da way, either. It is bizarre.. kind of like some are wearing religious blinders.. that the lord will return, not let us mess stuff up too badly..

all the while they are saddled up with an unsustainable lifestyle.

what the "wonders" of capitalism does in China, it would do here, if there were no restraints..

Harrison's "Piggies" comes to mind at the moment..

[leafytwiglet]

I have run into this attitude a lot... actually My boss pulls this BS out of his mental hat.. The line ... We are man God put us in charge so no animal or insect is more important than what we want to do...

IT is a stupid immature and nearsighted attitude that forgets that all living creatures coexist... and we all effect each other.

Man.. the only creature on earth that causes his own extinction not to mention all the other creatures

well except the cock roaches they are inheriting earth after we die out

[Twinky]

We are supposed to STEWARD this planet. Stewardship means taking care of.

Taking care of is not - dropping litter all over the place; ripping out rainforests; pumping oil up without regard to spillage; running fuel-inefficient cars, factories and such like; overproducing crops or other materials; and leaving your mess for others to clean up.

Even if one's viewpoint is not "save the earth" - isn't it about respect for the other people on this planet? Who likes their next door neighbor dumping their rubbish in one's own back yard? Why do that to anyone else?

Sure one day there will be a new earth. In the meantime, it befits us to take care of what we have.

Even animals have the sense not to **** in their own nests.

[Ham]

A new earth.. well, if there's justice..

the numbnuts who smeared the place up in God's name will be the ones to clean it up.. gather up all the plastic, dredge up the spilled oil,

and China.. better wear rubber gloves and full gear there..

*we* don't tolerate "clean" coal burning plants here.. why do we tolerate old fashioned, older technology fully equipped polluters THERE?

one of my neighbors is really really conservative.. would rather drown what's left of government in a bath tub.. but he goes to China, for his work..

I asked him.. "how's the air.. nice there?"

his face turned white..

he said they have toxic dumps and such, right next door to large schools..

toxic, flamable stuff all over, along with broken lights with bare hanging wires on and in the building..

It's a "paradise" for an importer, or big corp like say, wally mart..

[RumRunner]

one of my neighbors is really really conservative.. would rather drown what's left of government in a bath tub.. but he goes to China, for his work..

I asked him.. "how's the air.. nice there?"

his face turned white..

he said they have toxic dumps and such, right next door to large schools..

Heh - last time I was in Nanjing my travel MD told me ahead of time that being in Nanjing was about the same as smoking two packs of cigarettes a day.

[Ham]

Yep. I looked a lot of this up before, but my neighbor verified it as well. In the morning, at the crack of dawn, apparently the skies are pretty clear, looks like its going to be a nice day. They by noon, one cannot make out the sun.

I hope you weren't there in November of 2005..

In 2005 they lost something over a hundred tons of a mixture of nitro-benzene and benzene in the Songhua river. That incident made it into the Wall Street Journal..

the Chinese government didn't have even enough infra-structure in place respond to the spill, let alone to order drinking water to be shut off downstream.. and benzene ran out of the taps for two weeks before it got shut off..

infrastructure, to minimally deal with this kind of incident costs..

and industrialists don't particularly like to pay taxes.. might be cheap goods and low overhead now.. but just wait..

what I see coming, in about twenty years or so.. some world court will order them to clean it all up. make restitution for all the people it's made sick..

The whole world seems to be turning into a garbage dump..

[Ham]

Little regulatory overhead.

That's why you can buy a dvd player for $29.00.. I think I saw one once for $19.00.

and five minutes (or less) after you purchase one at wally mart, a computer in a Chinese facility knows whether or not to place an order, and produce another one..

Yep.. we in the u.s. are turning into a dump as well.. when the dvd fails within six months to a year or so, it will find it much harder to find a place to occupy in a landfill..

we are literally being buried under with cheap, unreliable, disposable kitchen appliances, flat screen tv's.. computers, monitors..plastic yard ornaments that won't stand up to sunlight..

maybe that's going to be the newest business venture in the u.s. Some entrepreneur will rent space for people to put their garbage. Don't pay? You get it all back..

Edited July 7, 2009 by Ham

[Bolshevik]

a long time ago, on a planet, right here, the atmosphere had no oxygen.

Then these stinking little photosynthetic bacteria started polluting earth's reducing atmosphere with oxygen. he he

What is it they say? Like a thousand years after you remove all the humans on earth it will be like we were never here?

It's not like earth was a happy place before we started "polluting" it.

[RumRunner]

a long time ago, on a planet, right here, the atmosphere had no oxygen.

Then these stinking little photosynthetic bacteria started polluting earth's reducing atmosphere with oxygen. he he

What is it they say? Like a thousand years after you remove all the humans on earth it will be like we were never here?

It's not like earth was a happy place before we started "polluting" it.

Remember Bolshevik - remember well - NEVER f(ck with the bacteria - they outnumber humans trillions to one.

[Ham]

I don't think we will have problems with bacteria in this water..

I could be wrong. Maybe its designer water, coloured to fit the décor of the elite in Europe..

but really.. WHAT IS IN THAT WATER??

I considered Chromium Red, but that's basically not solvable in water..

then notice the dog. Is the man with the bucket, his owner? If so, it is hard to believe he'd let his dog drink, let alone bathe in whatever it is..

maybe its china's solution to pet over-population..

[Ham]

and the guy with the bucket.. what does he want a couple of gallons of this for?

maybe.. they need drinking water for restless westerners in hotels in downtown Beijing.. something to choke down that sulfur laden soup they call air..

[Ham]

Considering China's love affair with coal, its probably just the garden variety coal mine wash water.

The acidity is from sulfuric acid.. the red is probably from iron deposits. Then there's who knows what else.. chromium, cadmium.. lead..

[Bolshevik]

my fish tank has turned red from bacteria I think, some kind of scum

maybe fish blood?

Remember Bolshevik - remember well - NEVER f(ck with the bacteria - they outnumber humans trillions to one.

first of all that ratio sounds "off", probably a lot more than a trillion.

second of all, considering all the places on the body bacteria live, that are actually good for us too . . . well, nevermind.

[Ham]

they are probably making plastic flamingos for wally mart..

naw. Can't be.. probably just a cigar smokers convention..

[Ham]

I wonder how much electricity costs per kilowatt hour from this little beauty..

no removal of sulfur or partiulates..

this is what people on the west coast are starting to breath. It kinda "wafts" across the Pacific ocean..

[brainfixed]

but don't you get it? they have to let the world go to hell because the bible tells them it will. see? like a hand in a glove.

[Ham]

Yep..

and a lot don't CARE. As long as the sulfur rolls over there.. not here..

seems the attitude is changing though.

What gets peoples attention is the loss of jobs, money, etc. labor is so cheap, and regulation (or enforcement) is so non-existent "over there".. capitalism DEMANDS one shift operations to greener pastures.

from the best estimates I can find on the web.. U.S. averages a little over 11 cents/kilowatt hour.. China, roughly 6.

The blue ray player price has dropped to $99.00. It will be lucky to function for two years, and is basically unrepairable.

I won't buy one..

[Twinky]

I went to meet someone off a plane yesterday. This particular plane journey had come from Singapore, don't know if it started there or came on from somewhere else. There was an astonishing number of Chinese-looking people emerging, all with close-fitting face masks. They clearly don't expect that the air in any airport could be breathable. How sad, I thought, that it was so much some people's expectations that they should live in an environment where they needed to wear those horrible things. I wonder what the life expectancy is in some of those Chinese cities that are the most industrialized? Their lives ... for western consumerism. Not a very fair bargain.

[Bolshevik]

as soon as we manage to clean things up according to our little standards, alls it takes is one megavolcano to ruin everything

volcanoes, they have no regard for the environment

[waysider]

Well, the point I was trying to make was that Wierwille promoted, no, endorsed this "head in the sand" kind of attitude about environmental issues. According to him, this stuff was irrelevant because, even if Christ didn't return in our lifetime, we could use "believing" to fix it all. We can't really ruin the planet. It's just a trick of the adversary. Everything would be "okay" because God already saw it in his foreknowledge and had a plan to fix it. Don't bother wasting your time or money on these things.

Sell PLAF and keep the ABS flowing.

[Ham]

I think vic's theology was only a symptom, or a sub-set of a larger disease..

sell PLAF and keep the abs running.. is a small microcosm of:

sell cheap junk and keep the tax base (barely) running..

I think he made some "deals" with a few real "devils"..